I did propose boardgames. My partner–rightly suggested–that it might be easier to find someone to play online video games with.
I played basketball in highschool and it was lots of fun. I am not sure I learned much about teamwork there. Most of what I learned was probably through games. RPGs, cooperative boardgames, computer games.
I think the among all the games I played, the one that taught me the most lessons–sometimes quite painful ones, too–was World of Warcraft. There I learned about teamwork and leadership and how badly written communication works.
The club activity while not sports is centered around a team competition… which is why it is important.
I’ll also echo the leadership and responsibility roles, and teamwork-based sports/activities. But I would take it one further: ask the teen why they think it is they retreat to work solo.
And then frame an opportunity to respond to that with leadership, responsibility, or a teamwork exercise.
Still not a parent…
And yet sometimes I have the need to post here.
Last week-end we were at a party and some of our friends teenagers proudly (yes, that) made a list for me of all the ways they have hacked the screentime limits imposed by their parents on phones, Steam usage or general internet usage.
One 15 yo had quite the impressive list of (mostly social engineering) type hacks…
watching mom type the “it was too short” password
photographing a visible password that was “long enough”
guessing a password that was too easy to guess
realizing dad’s windows account at home had no password and they could login and send an email with a code for more screentime to themselves (this one I found most impressive!)
disabling the settings that blocked them from the internet somehow bypassing parental controls
I really don’t remember the whole list. But watching the faces of the other kids around him, they had all done it–more than once or twice and had additional methods they weren’t telling me
Another friends’ (rather young) children have been known to sneak up next to a sleeping parent trying to use their thumb to wake up the locked tablet. (this one is the funniest though)
I have heard about this from other friends previously… that kids as young as 6yo manage to evade parental limits easily.
This week-end the “helpless” parents declared that hacking phones appears to be part of this generation’s basic survival skillset.
My partner was invited to a Facebook group where they discuss “Parenting in the Digital Age”
In reality, it’s mostly non-tech-savvy parents fear-mongering that the kids can figure anything out and recommending extremes, such as “get rid of your smartphones and tablets”, “buy expensive specialized-products”, etc.
It’s really a shame that technology (actual technology, not just software use) isn’t a core curriculum in all schools.
I’ve been toying with the idea of teaching “classes” on how to buy one of those NAS products, maintain it, and then layer self-hosted software on it. But having talked with the average parent of other kids at the school, I would have to start at such a fundamental/low level, I’m not sure I’m game.
Most of these parents are younger than me and, seemingly, by the time they were in school, technology classes were Word, Excel, etc and not even the “introductory BASIC” segment that was mandatory when I was there.
Maybe the 1995 Hackers will have a fitting Gen Z remake, as this generation brute-forces their way into technical literacy.
I think it is smart to limit screentime. But if the kids hack it… they have actually learned something and I think most of my friends were a little proud their kids got creative. My friends are all techies. They were listening to the discussion and laughing.
(they stop laughing when it comes to social media usage btw. that’s way more serious to most of them than just an hour or two of additional screentime)
Our screentime limits consist of “turn off the TV/devices now” when it’s time to eat or do homework, and no tablets in bed. I don’t think we could impose arbitrary time limits even if we wanted to.
No-one has access to any social media though, and our eldest (10) still doesn’t have a phone. That may change soonish though, still thinking about it.
My daughter (just turned 11) does not have her own device, she uses one of my computers or Mom’s iPad. Sparingly, but with out arbitrary limits. (If I were to impose such limits, I’d be doing it in the network infrastructure, in addition to the device. And the limitations would probably be not “device can’t connect” but some sort of reporting so I can see what is actually happening. ).
Yeah, we only impose a limit on my eldest’s phone, primalrily to make sure she actually deosn’t get stuck on it. She circumvents it by jumping on the computer to do some homework then segueing into other stuff on it.
She does complain, and says that we are on our phones all the time. Our counter argument is we aren’t and are frequently keeping the house running when we are not on our phone.
Betond that there is an expecatation that they come off devices when we ask. We try and give the deadline a reasonable run in so they can finish the game/video/chat.
